Here are some of the major philosophers we’ll be covering.

Choose FOUR for your Term Project.

Socrates

Began the spirit of questioning authority

Ethics above all

Anti-ego: Wisdom is knowing that you don’t know

Plato

Socrates’ student

Created first total system of philosophy

Two realities: physical and nonphysical

“All philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato”

Aristotle

Plato’s student

Began logic and science as well as analysis of art

Aquinas

Used Aristotle to make Christian thought philosophical

Established the idea that the good has existence, and evil is only a lack of good with no independent existence

Descartes

"I think, therefore I am"

Decisive break from the Dark Ages

Strove for mathematical certainty in all knowledge

Spinoza

Jewish philosopher in a Christian society

Established the human right of free speech

Voltaire

A free thinker in a time of repression and revolution

Made concepts of freedom and reason popular

Smart enough to learn from women

Locke

Established profound principles of how the mind works

Gave rational support to democracy and revolution

Hume

Proved the limitations of human knowledge

We cannot prove cause and effect

We follow custom and passion instead of reason-

and that's not such a bad thing

Rousseau

"Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains"

Civilization goes against human nature

Revolution can establish freedom

Kant

Greatest philosopher since the Greeks

Reality is in two spheres- the knowable & the unknowable

Reason can take us to the limits of knowledge – and knowledge is limited

Human beings are moral beings

We don’t need religion to show us what’s right and wrong

Schopenhauer

Kant’s two worlds are one

Art is the greatest consolation we have

Eastern philosophers

Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism have one message:

The truth is within, and meditation reveals it

Bentham

Leader of the “Philosophical Radicals”

Freethinker fought for social reform

Utilitarianism: “The greatest good for the greatest number”

Emerson

With Thoreau, embraced Eastern philosophy

Truth is found in individualism and self-reliance

Nietzsche

Each individual must discard the values of the past and create his or her own philosophy

The strong should dominate the weak (Nazis & sociopaths follow him)

Hegel

First to bring history into philosophy

History moves in the dialectical process of Thesis – Antithesis – Synthesis

History develops towards the spiritual for a better world

Marx

Turned Hegel’s spiritual dialectic into total materialism

History’s dialectic moves towards a dictatorship of the workers

Bertrand Russell

Philosophy and logic are based on mathematics

Fought for peace & social justice

Sartre

Existentialist who taught concepts of "self-creation" and "bad faith"

Camus

Existentialist who taught rebellion against meaninglessness

"A saint without God"

Wittgenstein

The philosophy of language

Language is the essence of picturing reality

Words have an infinity of meanings and uses

Karl Popper

The art of “replacement” – science shows the way that theories can constantly be corrected and improved

Reform society by destroying that which is no longer functional

Carol Gilligan and/or Nell Noddings

Bringing the female trait of Caring into philosophy, psychology, education

Joseph Campbell

The mythology of all cultures: the stories we all learn from

The Hero’s Journey is essential to all myth

Each person is the hero of his/her own story and life quest